The Guitarévolution festival (Montréal) offers a panorama of the electric guitar’s future from September 28 to October 12, 2002. Do not miss, amongst others, “Ambiances Magnétiques plays the guitar” Thursday October 10 at La Chapelle, featuring Bernard Falaise, Daniel Heïkalo, Arthur Bull and saxophonist Pierre Labbé. Also scheduled, “3 guitars plus” with André Duchesne, Rainer Wiens, Jean-Claude Patry and nine other young guitarists. You can browse the complete schedule on the Innovations en concert website or by consulting La Liste.

Do not miss the Fanfare Pourpour live at the Va-et-Vient (Montréal) on October 12, 2002.

Toronto doublebassist Victor Bateman visits Joane Hétu, Jean Derome and Pierre Tanguay October 17, 2002 at Casa del Popolo (Montréal).

Maxime de la Rochefoucauld and his Automates Ki will be live October 4 and 5, 2002 in Portland (OR) and October 11 and 12 in San Diego (CA).

In September 2001, Queen Mab clarinettist Lori Freedman relocated to Montréal and quickly hooked up with the Ambiances Magnétiques crowd. The label released her first solo album in October 2002 (1999’s Huskless! on the Artifact label, featured other musicians on some tracks and consisted for the most part of contemporary compositions.) À un moment donné contains 13 improvisations on bass clarinet and B-flat clarinet. Her range of expression is commendable, encompassing Peter Brotzmann’s top-of-the-lungs flurries of notes and Wolfgang Fuchs’ delicately abstract dances. Without pinning her voice to gender, it must be said that Freedman brings a feminine essence to her instrument. Colour and melody win over sheer power or technique (which doesnt mean that she lacks anything in these categories). There is a swing and a tenderness in her playing that we dont find in her male counterparts, especially those from Europe. The album begins with Roofless, a riveting piece, the most high-energy number of the set. Her bass clarinet twists, screams and wails in your face, buck naked. Now that she has caught your attention, the improviser walks down softer roads, occasionally surfing the thin line between tone and texture as in the beautiful 2B2. Uglybeautétu is another powerful piece that evokes a primal scream, brutal yet essential. Sailor Bears sees Freedman stripping down her playing to focus on elusive notes squeezed out of her instrument’s highest register. This beautiful ending strengthens the intensity of the whole set. there is nothing easy about À un moment donné: the music relentlessly calls for your attention, stirring up your emotions in the process. It speaks to you: after the disc stops spinning you feel the need to grab an instrument and answer.

In the context of all that hoopla up Canada way about Quebec seceding, not to mention the huff over which language to use, it is no surprise that a record produced by Québécois, casting itself as an exploration of “resistance and anarchist, pacifist, feminist joy”, is a challenging listen. If you are going to explore politics in the Great White North, you must make it difficult, even if you are a musician.

For Océan à Vendre/For Sale, Montréal-based avant-garde guitarist Chenard is up to her waist in collaboration with bassist Asencio. The politically themed electro-jazz-cum-space-rock compositions, all of which — by their French titles — proclaim that something is for sale, are dressed up with mechanistic noise and buried beats, so there often isn’t an organic vibe to the guitar and bass jams. In fact, some numbers, including Sommet à vendre, focus primarily on feedback, tape static and glistening bleeps, obscuring almost all of the guitar and bass work. Océan à vendre is occasionally so noisy it approaches Einstürzende Neubatenish levels of clang and clamor.

Although Océan à vendre can be a very disorienting listen, by its sheer nature there seems to be something for almost everyone here. Sommet à vendre offers a bit of electro-noise and buzzing amps, while the loopy bass-driven jam Planète à vendre gives Asencio an opportunity to tinker with a funky, Victor Woottenish aesthetic — he creates a bed of loping bass notes, over which Chenard slithers various guitar noodles. Rouge à vendre showcases a set of Chenard’s noodles, reminiscent of Bill Frisell’s, laid over a wavering, Tones on Tail-esque bass figure.

At first, Océan à vendre seems a bit intimidating. However, if you ignore its political jargon (which is easy if you know as little French as I do) and approach it as a collection of abstract musical sketches and explorations, it is more readily digestible. Though Chenard and Asencio make a point of wearing their political leanings on their sleeves, it is debatable whether their art suffers at all when separated from their ideologies. At its core, this record is an imaginative 66 minutes of out-there jazz, and that is something we can all get behind.